Post processing computer build...video card

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bdobyns

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One of the biggest draws in the camera bodies I use or have used, d500, 5, 850, z6 and z9, over the past 10 years or so was the speed of the xqd and now the cfexpress card. I cover a ton of sports and macro and I hate waiting. My current computer build is an Asus am5 mobo, pro art, 64 gb ddr5, 3 m.2 storage drives and usb 4. This is to ensure the highest transfer rates both to and from storage media and applications, mainly lightroom classic, photoshop, topaz and zerene stacker. I am not satisfied with rendering time and was hoping I might get some advice as to what type of video (graphics) card upgrade might help. I do zero gaming. Thanks for your help.
 
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bdobyns said:
I am not satisfied with rendering time and was hoping I might get some advice as to what type of video (graphics) card upgrade might help. I do zero gaming. Thanks for your help.
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This is probably a good place to start considering your options.

www.tomshardware.com

How to Buy the Right Graphics Card: A GPU Guide for 2024

Balancing performance, price, and features.
www.tomshardware.com www.tomshardware.com

Consider also if the power rating of computer's current power-supply is adequate for selected GPU. There's on-line tools to provide guidance for that.

Much depends on what you consider as better rendering times.

I have an Intel i7 w. 16gb RAM, SSDs, etc. and an RTX-3050 GPU. I also do not do gaming. With my system rendering of groups of short 4K video clips is fine for my use. Your usage is probably different. There's many variables.
 
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Since I don't do any gaming, I was hoping that an older graphics card was going to suffice, but I am finding it as the weak link in the build. I am leaning towards the AMD 790 XT which comes with 20 gb. It is a bit on the expensive side but I do like the fact that it comes with 4-8gb more memory than the other cards in its price range. Power supply is not an issue and the case allows for vertical mounting of the graphics card allowing for up to 4 slots opening on the back. I have always tried to build a computer based on my workflow with previous versions of Lightroom and Photoshop, but the previous builds really weren't based on the size and speed of today's technology. My hope is that the work I am doing with my current cameras, z9 and still the d5 (love my 400mm 2.8 f mount lens and it matches well with the D5) and maybe the addition of the z8, which is slowly move away from sports and be more wildlife/macro/landscape that the programs that I am using today will be as fast as they are now well into the future and keep me pacified moving into retirement.
 
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A great deal depends on the available slots as most new graphics cards are 2.5 or 3 slots in width. There is also the power supply that you are using as some boards like the RTX 4090 need a 1200W power supply. And another issue can be the connector provided on the power supply as the adapter cables do not always work with the 10-pin boards.
 
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Calson said:
A great deal depends on the available slots as most new graphics cards are 2.5 or 3 slots in width. There is also the power supply that you are using as some boards like the RTX 4090 need a 1200W power supply. And another issue can be the connector provided on the power supply as the adapter cables do not always work with the 10-pin boards.
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Very important. In my case, the case allows for a vertical mount of the card and allows up to a four slot opening in the back and only needs two 8 pin connectors with a min of 750 PS.

Honestly, and this is my own opinion, too many photographers stress too much on the gear to capture the image and not enough on the gear to process the image. Back in the day, how important was it to have quality equipment in the darkroom? Having the right computer set up can really make the post processing part of the job fun...being able to take that RAW image and end up with print worthy work makes you want to get out even more.

BTW: I decided on the RX 7900 XT 20 GB, pricey but should be usable for the next ten years, I hope.
 
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I feel the pain, my laptop actually requires 20 to 25 minutes to load a Z9 NEF into the edit panel.

My PC has this: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 (10GB GDDR6X) - and requires 6 to 7 seconds on the exact same photo, and continues that for many dozens of photos
 
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If you are concerned about LR Classic performance, you want a modern GPU with as many tensor cores as possible. 8GB is a minimum, and 12 or 16 GB is better. Nvidia GPU are generally more compatible with LR Clacssic, and the 4070 Super is a good starting point for decent performance without needing too much $ or wattage.

Good luck,

--Ken
 
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Replytoken said:
If you are concerned about LR Classic performance, you want a modern GPU with as many tensor cores as possible. 8GB is a minimum, and 12 or 16 GB is better. Nvidia GPU are generally more compatible with LR Clacssic, and the 4070 Super is a good starting point for decent performance without needing too much $ or wattage.

Good luck,

--Ken
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The onboard memory is the main reason I will give the Radeon Card an opportunity, 20gb. I was looking at the Nvidia cards in the same price range but they had less memory. I am hoping that the performance will be a big improvement. The build is an AMD so I am hoping that the communication between components will be smooth from the start. I use Topaz when I need to denoise, night football games, and I preview all the culled pics and that is one area I would love to speed up. Just getting into macro and stacking so we shall see if the upgrade in a graphics card will help. Thanks for your input.
 
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Charles Loy said:
I feel the pain, my laptop actually requires 20 to 25 minutes to load a Z9 NEF into the edit panel.

My PC has this: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 (10GB GDDR6X) - and requires 6 to 7 seconds on the exact same photo, and continues that for many dozens of photos
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I understand that pain and when I am traveling, I have similar problems. Usually I will cull images in file explorer and then just work on a few images if there is something that I want to post, but the majority of the post processing is done on my PC. I worked as a yearbook adviser for many years and those poor students were using SD cards on slow computers and it would take half the class period just to transfer images from their card to the computer, then they would see mine transfer in seconds...gotta love CFExpress with a computer built to take advantage of their speed.
 
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bdobyns said:
The onboard memory is the main reason I will give the Radeon Card an opportunity, 20gb. I was looking at the Nvidia cards in the same price range but they had less memory. I am hoping that the performance will be a big improvement. The build is an AMD so I am hoping that the communication between components will be smooth from the start. I use Topaz when I need to denoise, night football games, and I preview all the culled pics and that is one area I would love to speed up. Just getting into macro and stacking so we shall see if the upgrade in a graphics card will help. Thanks for your input.
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I do not use Topaz (but a friend love to use in in conjunction with LRC), and I have no beefs with AMD, but there have been a number of threads at LR Queen discussing GPU performance and issues, and the consensus is that Nvidia cards have less compatibility issues and tensor cores are one of the more important features when choosing a GPU. That's not to say that what you have chosen may not fly, but I am not sure that synergy will have a big impact in this case. Then again, if LRC is only a part of your post processing, then other programs may be quite happy with other GPUs. And needless to say, a CPU with a decent number of cores and clock speed is also part of this equation. Report back how things turned out. I am shopping for a new PC myself, mostly for LRC, but I have not settled yet on a build that I like.

--Ken
 
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I have always heard good things about photo mechanic, just never pulled the trigger. When adding key words does that allow for those keywords to be entered into lightroom as keywords? I would assume that importing images is faster than lightroom.
 
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bdobyns said:
When adding key words does that allow for those keywords to be entered into lightroom as keywords? I would assume that importing images is faster than lightroom.
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When keywords are added in PM they're added to each image's metadata. So if images are brought into LR after PM the metadata comes along with it.

I don't use LR for keywording. I add keywords in PM after culling in PM and later import, processing and .jpg export from LR. I only keyword the exported .jpg images that I believe will be used by others outside my workflow. For my workflow/uses I see no need to invest the time/effort to keyword others.

PM has an ingest function. This enables fast previewing of images while they're still on the memory card. While still on the memory card the keeper images can be marked by PM for ingesting. Then only the marked keepers are ingested/copied from the memory card into a folder on computer for later importing/processing in LR, etc. No need to pull in all the culls to computer.
 
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If I were still doing Yearbook, I would invest in Photmechanic and have my students learn and use it or if I were making money as it seems it could really free up time. For personal use I think file Explorer can read RAW files and allow for a first cull rather quickly, and renaming can be done quickly. I can then import and store potential keepers, a second cull using color or rating and delete from disk left over garbage. For storing of images, have always created a RAW folder and an export folder, yy.mm.dd + brief description for each event. I know I could keyword on import, just never got into it, however on a pro level keywords, captions, etc would be invaluable. Sorry, this should be an entirely different thread. Graphics cards are important.
 
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